Contamination and sick OCD

Two days ago, my neighbor let me know her child had tested positive for flu. Since our kids are friends, she told me to keep an eye on mine. It disturbed my peace a bit, but I pushed thru as best I could. (I say that then think back over my movements the past couple of days and it's honestly kicked up the compulsions.) Today, she woke up with a fever and now the obsessions have taken over my thoughts. I'm so worried about getting the fever. Usually it would be because I'm scared to take medicine, but this time it's something different entirely, which has me more freaked. My nose has been bleeding off and on for a month now and it just started happening again a few days ago. From prior research, it says you can't take Tylenol or ibuprofen with a nose bleed because it thins the blood. So I'm freaking out about how I'll treat my fever IF I do get one. 🤦🏼‍♀️ Such thought loops bring on such feelings of inadequacy. How can I help my child heal when I can't even help myself? Or how can I care for her as best as I can when I'm so afraid of catching it? Also, I rely on my husband to talk me down and help me emotionally when these situations arise and it makes me feel incredibly weak. He didn't marry this person. I was confident and didn't know the meaning of anxiety when we got together 16 years ago. But since the birth of our youngest daughter, fear, anxiety, and OCD has been my new norm. I feel like a failure for needing so much reassurance and for constantly feeling like I can't do this on my own. Sometimes it makes me obsessed that he's going to give up on me because I'm not worth the trouble and other times it makes me want to give up so I stop relying so much on him. My child has a little cold and for the most part, is totally fine, but still I'm obsessed about this being something I'm going to catch that ultimately is going to kill me. all because of a stupid little nose bleed and fear of fever.

Recently, I’ve been struggling a ton with what I eat/put into my body? I’m a first year college student with a few different health issues (including IBS), and lately it’s been hard for me to find food on campus that doesn’t upset my stomach. I also have pretty severe emetophobia, and feel extremely anxious when I feel sick. The ironic thing is that being anxious makes me feel even worse, so I end up sticking myself in an impossible loophole. My OCD has taken hold of these fears over the past few months, and it’s been such a struggle. Especially since people have been getting food poisoning from various dining halls on my campus lately. My OCD has gotten so bad that sometimes I’m too afraid to eat food other than what I buy myself. I feel so trapped. I don’t want my OCD to affect my physical health or prevent me from eating, bc I love eating!! It’s the fear of getting sick that’s the problem. And it’s even harder when everything is so unfamiliar. Just wondering if anyone could relate. Advice is appreciated!

This has recently developed into something much bigger than it originally was. When this past winter season started, i noticed more people were getting the stomach bug than usual. I was fine at first, until I was noticing almost one person in every class was saying they recently had it. I researched about it, and I found what I was looking for unfortunately. Norovirus cases were surging across the U.S because of a new strain of NoV that recently had been spreading. This immediately altered my way of thinking. Everywhere I went, I would be overly cautious of what’s around me and whose around me. The first obsessive compulsive problem I had was that I couldn’t eat at lunch anymore unless I washed my hands. One time, I didn’t have an option to wash my hands, so I didn’t eat lunch. That’s when I knew it was interfering with my daily life, and it was becoming a serious issue. There was another time where some guy threw up near me in the hallway trash can. My mind was spiraling. all. day. long. It felt like it was consuming me alive. Not a minute would go by where I wouldn’t think about it, and the high possibility of me catching this virus. There’s been so many other scenarios where I feel myself losing it. I’m not the best of explaining in detail how my mind feels when it spirals, but the best thing I could say is that I could feel myself slowly losing my mind. It takes over my life. I HAVE to act on my compulsive acts, if not, i’ll have these obsessive thoughts until it consumes me whole. I’ve had nervous breakdowns, panic attacks, anxiety attacks, insomnia, and it almost feels like it’s causing me to have an eating disorder. Most recently, I went to use the bathroom and saw what looked like puke on the toilet seat. I was already using it, so I just finished my buisness and rushed out there asap. I figured, if I fasted for two days, what’s there to puke if I do catch NoV? So, I did. I missed school because on the second day of fasting, I became very dehydrated. I was weak, and couldn’t move. I realized what this all rooted back to. That’s when I knew I needed help.